News and updates

SING USA 2019 applications open now

SING USA 2019 will be held in Urbana-Champagne, Illinois, from July 28th to August 4th. The focus for their workshop will be epigenetics, transcriptomics, historic trauma, and resiliency. The programme is primarily open to Native students from USA but SING Aotearoa will have scholarships for two alumni to attend. A flyer about the SING USA 2019 workshop can be found here.

SING Aotearoa 2019

SING Aotearoa 2019 is being held in Palmerston North from Jan 21-25th. The focus for the coming year will be non-human genomics and we are working with Massey University, Plant and Food Research, AgResearch, and the Riddet Institute to organise activities for the workshop.

SING Canada

From July 29 – August 4, 2018, the inaugural SING Canada was held at Simon Fraser University(SFU) near Vancouver, British Columbia. It was hosted by SFU and co-organized with the IndigenousScience, Technology, and Society (ITS) research group at the University of Alberta. 18 interns and 2 Indigenous community involvement and policy staff members from the Silent Genomes research project attended this workshop. Participants came from across Canada and the US including Métis, Mi’kmaq, Nishnawbek, Anishinaabe, Cree, Gitxsan, Dakelth, Inuit, Mohawk, Choctaw, and Jñatrjo (Mazahua)/Ñuu Savi (Mixtec) Indigenous people.

Silent Genomes Gathering Ceremony

Maui Hudson and Phil Wilcox attended the gathering ceremony and launch of the Silent Genomes research project on 18/19 July 2018 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada . One of the aims of the projects is to develop the governance policy and protocols to manage an Indigenous Background Variant Library which will be used to improve the quality of genetic diagnosis for First Nations children.

SING Seattle 2018

SING USA was held at the University of Washington in Seattle from 24-29th July 2018. SING Aotearoa conveners Maui Hudson and Phil Wilcox were invited to participate as faculty/mentors and spoke about the development of the cultural guidelines. They were joined by SING Alumni Scholarship recipients Jordan Housiaux and Anezka Hoskins. It was great spending a week talking about indigenous genomics with over 40 indigenous faculty and students.